Gamini Salgado (1929–1985)

Fun to read, lots of contemporary quotes, covers all the good stuff: jail, insane asylums, prostitution, gambling--the seven deadly sins are all well-taken care of. I was most interested in the section on con artists--apparently there were a lot of them--and the different cons they'd play on the poor country rubes new to London town. Some of the stuff on horoscopes was a little boring, but it's intermingled with a well-done section on witchcraft. Apparently there was a sort of secret show more admiration for "witches", who usually were much better at healing than the "educated" doctors. Probably didn't hurt that in many parts of England opium poppies grew like weeds. The Folio version has lots of good illustrations...Did you know that a great many of the houses of ill-repute were concentrated around an archbishopric? (Pun intended) show less

This was an incredible and different book; a compendium of literature born of and documenting the organized Elizabethan criminal class. I was intrigued by the varied taxonomy of "cony-catching" cons and crooks from common pickpockets and prostitutes to more exotic varieties like those hook things with poles through windows, the "jarkman" vagabond counterfeiter of documents (as licenses, passes, certificates), and illegal coal crews. The horse thieves ("priggers of prancers" as in the show more colorful slang terminology, glossary on 146) played a role like long-term car thieves, including obscuring marks then as someone would w/VINs now. It seems whenever I read of an epoch's crime body, there is likely an element of disaffected veterans that were not successfully re-integrated into society. Among the ways that shows here is the heavies, the "rufflers".

Then there is "co" (pp. 66, 138), apparently a boy, a rogue, or both. Why can't this 2-letter word be legal in Scrabble and Words With Friends?!

It amazes me how much social engineering, a hallmark of spearphishing and more today, was so important to these crooks. Also, the editors' decisions between footnotes and endnotes is schizophrenic. show less

I thought this was a wonderfully detailed look at the "seamy underbelly", far from the lilting Elizabethan ballads and and courtly blah blah: theaters, fairs, prisons, brothels... Recommended for anyone interested in the flip side of history.

History, History of England, Alchemy